


Past Our Dancing Days

by Mara



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Drama, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet/For you and I are past our dancing days"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past Our Dancing Days

**Author's Note:**

> Not long after "They Keep Killing Suzie." This is my 9/27 choc_fic post. Yes, I know I'm early :)

The day after she helped Torchwood get out of their base (and that was *still* funny), a bouquet appeared on Detective Kathy Swanson's desk. It was a tasteful arrangement of tulips, amazingly restrained considering its origin.

Kathy considered the card--"Thanks for the help. Sincerely, Jack"--and wondered if he'd had a secretary order the flowers, because she'd expected a come-on accompanied by something flamboyant like red roses.

Of course, the lack of roses didn't stop her team from finding the flowers worth a laugh.

"Seen your boyfriend around lately?" Laksha asked as she strolled by. "I hear he was flirting with Callum over a corpse the other day. Are you willing to share?"

"Give it a rest," Kathy said, without looking up from the report she was reading.

Laksha wandered away and Kathy leaned back in her chair, ignoring its tendency to topple sideways. She considered the report of events at Hedley Point quay, which she'd received as a courtesy because it seemed related to the Briscoe murders.

It was a sketchy report, to be sure, but she knew that was Torchwood's fault. However, it seemed clear that a former Torchwood employee was dead, shot by Jack Harkness, and a current member of his team was injured in some way.

(The responding officers had not been allowed to examine either woman, but as the report tartly noted, "The unmoving body with multiple gunshot wounds is presumed dead.")

Kathy scowled, rather wishing she hadn't read the report. She glanced around the room in a casual fashion, noting Laksha at the board with Dave, arguing as usual, Gareth still ringing a potential witness, and Hugh glaring at his computer and jabbing at the antiquated keyboard as if it had personally insulted him.

The problem was, she *enjoyed* being mad at Torchwood and she didn't want to feel sorry for the annoying Captain Harkness. (Captain. Hah. If he was a captain, she was up for an OBE.) But she couldn't help wondering what he was feeling now.

And that annoyed her no end. Because she knew that Harkness firmly believed that anyone who met him couldn't stop thinking about him, and that attitude pissed her off almost as much as Torchwood's cavalier attitude toward police procedure.

But Kathy hadn't lost a member of her team yet and she'd never killed anyone either. She'd barely pulled her weapon in the line of duty, for that matter. Veterans told her frequently that she'd been lucky so far and she knew it was true.

So she steadfastly was *not* imagining his smirking face turning hard and cold as he pulled the trigger on a former teammate.

Except that she absolutely was.

Harkness, she decided, had a talent. The man could be infuriating and annoying without even having to be present.

* * *

For a secret organization, Torchwood was incredibly easy to find. Well, not their base, but it only took a few questions to find where Torchwood relaxed after a hard day of driving Cardiff's police absolutely barmy.

Kathy stood outside the pub a few blocks from the bay, taking a deep breath. It's not that she was nervous, but...

Bloody hell. She strode in without another thought.

The pub was crowded, its warm wooden walls echoing with the sounds of hard drinking and Cardiff/Conventry match, but it was easy to find Torchwood, because Harkness' laugh rang out over the noise.

Pushing her way past a group of university students intent on the telly, she saw Harkness on a stool, spinning to say something to the Torchwood doctor. She was still a few metres away when he noticed her, eyebrows shooting up as he smiled.

"Kathy!" he said with apparent happiness as she got closer. "Good to see you." He gestured at a clear spot next to him at the bar while his team gave each other significant looks.

"Captain Harkness." She nodded, stepping up to the bar.

"You can call me Jack, you know." She gave him a look and he threw his head back, laughing and showing his very white teeth. "Or not."

"Can I talk to you? Alone."

He waggled his eyebrows. "You could have called."

"This isn't the sort of conversation to have over the phone."

"Sounds intriguing." He drained his glass, which didn't look like it had lager or bitters in it. She wasn't close enough to smell it, although she caught herself starting to lean forward. Harkness put the glass down with a trace of a smirk. "Soda. Or do you call it pop?"

"I don't call it anything," Kathy said, trying to maintain her dignity.

"Right." He turned to look at his team, who'd been watching this exchange with the avid fascination of tennis fans at Wimbledon. "Well, I'll be right back. If she kills me, I expect to be properly avenged."

"Certainly, sir," a Welshman she hadn't met said. "I'll be sure to dance on her grave." His tone was such that she wasn't entirely sure how much that was a joke.

"Thanks, Ianto. Good to know."

She allowed herself one look at his bum before he slid his long coat on. He glanced over his shoulder at her, his smirk knowing, and she flushed, glad her skin didn't show it.

With a nod, he led the way out, sliding through the crowd with annoying ease. How did he *do* that?

When they got outside, he paused, looking at her. "Where did you want to talk?"

With a tilt of her chin, she gestured down the street. "There's a park that way."

They walked in silence, Harkness seemingly content to let her get to the point in her own time.

Kathy settled on a bench, unsurprised when he sat just a *little* closer than most people would. She wondered if it was unconscious for him.

Leaning back against the bench, he watched her, his expression calm and curious.

"It *was* your fault, wasn't it?" she asked finally.

He did her the courtesy of considering the question seriously. "Yeah, it kind of was." For a moment, an expression she couldn't read passed over his face. "A bit of hubris come back to haunt us." He seemed about to say something else, but stopped himself.

"You lot, you swan about in your fancy SUV." She took a deep breath. "What do you *do*? What gives you the right?"

Totally serious, he looked her in the eyes. "I really wish I could tell you. But it's somewhere above 'top secret' and just below 'if I tell you, I'd have to kill you.'"

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I," he shot back.

She paused, trying to decide if he was a better liar than she expected or if he was telling the truth. She couldn't decide. "I grew up in London. I came to Cardiff looking for something different. Something better."

He looked past her, eyes closing for a long moment. "You're not the only person who's done that," he said, looking back at her. "Didn't work, did it?"

"No. Same shite, different day." Sighing, she studied him. Who *was* he? What was he doing?

"You didn't really drag me out of the pub in order to ask me a question you were sure I couldn't answer." His smile was back.

"No, I didn't. I wanted to talk to you because I got a copy of the report about what happened at Hedley Point."

His smile disappeared. "Ah."

She crossed her arms. "But if you're just going to say you can't tell me anything, then I'm wasting my time."

"I don't know," he said slowly. "It depends on what you want to know."

She didn't pause for an instant. "Did you shoot a former member of your team?"

"Do you think I'm a murderer?" he asked.

"Answer the question," she said.

"I'm getting there. Do you think I'm a murderer?"

"Doesn't matter. I couldn't arrest you. Or at least I couldn't put you in prison without the Prime Minister or someone getting you out again."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you think I murdered a former teammate in cold blood or don't you?"

That was the question she'd been trying to avoid, even in her own head, because...well, for a lot of reasons. And for all her worries, her answer came out on its own. "No," she said to her own surprise. "No, I think if you killed her, it was because you had to."

Very slowly, he nodded his head.

"Say it."

She felt like an idiot, but he seemed to understand, looking her in the eye in all seriousness. "I did not kill her in cold blood. What I did was necessary to protect other lives. I wish I hadn't had to do it."

"Thank you."

Suddenly he grinned and he was once again the mischievous, annoying, and bloody well sexy Torchwood agent. "No, thank *you*. So, would you like to go dancing with me tonight?"

"No," she said firmly.

"How about tomorrow?" he asked.

"You don't ever give up, do you?"

"Not generally, no."

\--end--


End file.
